OSA production of DReamgirls was a smashing hit! but how much work was put into this?-- Lottie Mills, 7th grade
Did you go to see OSA’s version of the Broadway play Dreamgirls? If the answer is yes, great! Good for you. If the answer is no, then… your loss. It was amazing! “I think it was shocking that it was even a school production,” said Amara Deanes, an OSA Literary Arts eighth grader.
Dreamgirls is an empowering play that celebrates music and culture. It follows Effie, a young woman with dreams of becoming a star. Effie and her group, the Dreamettes, are noticed by a car salesman, Curtis Taylor Jr, who gets them working for famous star Jimmy Early. The story follows the Dreamettes turned Dreamgirls as they work their way to fame and each follow their own dreams.
OSA then made an all-school musical on that same story. Dreamgirls ran for five days at OSA, in the Black Box Theater. The set was built by Production Design and the costumes made by the Fashion pathway. It was a collaboration of a lot of pathways, but the actors were not all from theatre.
The auditions were open to everyone in all the pathways and in all of the grades. Students signed up for the initial audition and got put into a time slot. Afterwards, the teachers put up a list of everyone who had made it to callbacks. After callbacks, you found out if you had made it into the final play.
Tavia Percia, the director of Dreamgirls and a Theatre teacher, said “I chose the actors by having them read for specific parts at the callbacks and matching them with others to see if they match each other's energy and how much chemistry the actors had with one another.” The students that passed became the actors that performed in the final show.
After the auditions, it was about another six months of rehearsal before opening night. During that time, they worked on dancing, singing, and of course, acting! “My favorite part of working on Dreamgirls was getting to see the show assemble, from separate little parts, to a whole being,” said Ruah Barkan, a 7th grade actor in the ensemble of Dreamgirls. But why did they do Dreamgirls in the first place? Percia said that she “chose Dreamgirls [for the all-school musical] because its themes of community, arts and fellowship are what I think makes OSA so impactful and I wanted to highlight those things with as many OSA students as possible.”
Dreamgirls is an empowering play that celebrates music and culture. It follows Effie, a young woman with dreams of becoming a star. Effie and her group, the Dreamettes, are noticed by a car salesman, Curtis Taylor Jr, who gets them working for famous star Jimmy Early. The story follows the Dreamettes turned Dreamgirls as they work their way to fame and each follow their own dreams.
OSA then made an all-school musical on that same story. Dreamgirls ran for five days at OSA, in the Black Box Theater. The set was built by Production Design and the costumes made by the Fashion pathway. It was a collaboration of a lot of pathways, but the actors were not all from theatre.
The auditions were open to everyone in all the pathways and in all of the grades. Students signed up for the initial audition and got put into a time slot. Afterwards, the teachers put up a list of everyone who had made it to callbacks. After callbacks, you found out if you had made it into the final play.
Tavia Percia, the director of Dreamgirls and a Theatre teacher, said “I chose the actors by having them read for specific parts at the callbacks and matching them with others to see if they match each other's energy and how much chemistry the actors had with one another.” The students that passed became the actors that performed in the final show.
After the auditions, it was about another six months of rehearsal before opening night. During that time, they worked on dancing, singing, and of course, acting! “My favorite part of working on Dreamgirls was getting to see the show assemble, from separate little parts, to a whole being,” said Ruah Barkan, a 7th grade actor in the ensemble of Dreamgirls. But why did they do Dreamgirls in the first place? Percia said that she “chose Dreamgirls [for the all-school musical] because its themes of community, arts and fellowship are what I think makes OSA so impactful and I wanted to highlight those things with as many OSA students as possible.”